Jejudone

According to legend, Jejudo is an island inhabited by 18000 gods. Now I don't know exactly what we did that ticked them off, but it seems that every last one of those sons of bitches was out to ruin our vacation. Maybe I exaggerate. It wasn't all bad. The day we flew down happened to be the first full moon after the lunar new year so there had been a three-day fire festival going on (Jeongwol Daeboreum Fire Festival), which we just arrived in time to see the climax of. We wouldn't have known anything about it, except Dayna's Canadian friend Troy has been working on the island for the last couple of months, and coincidentally he'd bought himself a car just the day before we arrived, so he generously battled his way through the gridlock surrounding the event to come and get us. Unfortunately we'd already missed the pig-catching, pony-fighting and ploughing demonstrations, but we did get to see the main spectacle, when a large hill/small mountain is set ablaze - in recognition of the traditional method of insect extermination which may, I'm not sure, still go on): Here's a video: Saturday was in fact a beautiful day - it was sunny, it was warm, it was everything we had been promised: But it did not last. Sunday saw torrential rain all day long. If it hadn't been for Troy and his wonderful car, I don't what we'd have done. As it was, we made it round the museums of sex and chocolate (Jeju is the place for honeymooners in Korea, as typically they don't get much time off work so can't go far, so many of the tourist spots are designed to get them in the mood), a botanical garden (am I the only one who thought pineapples grew on trees?), and some caves which the Japanese used to hide bits of submarine back in the day. Here's Tinky Winky at the Chocolate Museum, where we did not get free samples! Don't go there! There wasn't even much to buy at the shop. Boo! Where Sunday was wet but humid, Monday was frigid but dry, which is lucky since mine and Dayna's umbrellas had both snapped already. Unfortunately the wind was still blowing hard, meaning that our plans to visit Udo (Cow Island) had to be scrapped as the ferries weren't running. Udo is famed for it's aging population of female divers - they dive 20 minutes down to the seabed collecting shellfish, holding their breath for 2 minutes at a time. We went to see some waterfalls instead. Of course, there's a legend: seven nymphs came down from heaven for a paddle one day, something like that... Dayna putting on a brave face about twenty minutes before packing in and heading back to the motel. Though they were kinda pretty, they just weren't worth the cold, which none of us had packed appropriately for. I soon followed Dayna's example and retreated back to our room for a good hot bath. Tuesday it was cold still, we even got a few snow flurries. This is when we finally had to admit defeat: the island had beaten us, and we were never going to make it up Hallasan. At 1,950 metres, Hallasan is South Korea's tallest mountain (actually a dormant volcano) and hiking it had been the centrepiece of our itinerary, so we were pretty bummed when the tourist information people strongly advised against it. Instead, we visited yet another museum. Here's the highlight of Dayna's day: But me and Christa did finally get to eat some decent sushi after pining for days - we just had to foist vegan Dayna onto Mary for a couple of hours in order to get away with it! We all met up again later to drink and warble away the pain of it all: So all in all? Better than working, yes, certainly, but were we sad to leave? Hell no.